Former Peak to Peak elementary principal Noelle Roni said Sunday she was fired by the Lafayette charter school after she demanded that cafeteria workers stop stamping the hands of children – including those who qualified for the free lunch program – when their lunch accounts were empty.

“As soon as I saw it happening, I was like, ‘No, this is not OK,'” she told the Daily Camera. “The students felt so humiliated, like they had done something wrong. They didn't want to go into the lunchroom any more. It's unethical and disrespectful.”

Roni's comments, more than two months after her ouster, mark the first time she has addressed the events that she alleges led to her termination. Previously, Roni only had said she was let go in retaliation for "standing up for children's rights and against activities that stigmatized children."

When asked Sunday about Roni's allegations, Peak to Peak's board of directors said in a written statement that they can't comment on personnel issues, but that “Peak to Peak does not condone or tolerate unlawful retaliation.”

A memo prepared by Roni's lawyer, Alexander Halpern, also claims her firing wasn't valid because it was done by an administrator instead of a public vote by the school's board as required by the Lafayette charter school's bylaws.

“The violation of the open meetings law is part of an ongoing pattern of conduct by the board to terminate Ms. Roni without the knowledge or participation of the school membership or, indeed, Ms. Roni herself,” Halpern wrote in the memo.

Several weeks after Roni was fired, the board broke its silence and called her claims of a hostile work environment “baseless” in an email sent to parents.

Peak to Peak board president Thomas Willetto wrote in the email that while the school was advised by legal counsel not to say anything about Roni's departure, the ensuing outcry from parents forced board members to address the decision to fire Roni, which was made by Kelly Reeser, Peak to Peak's executive director of education.

According to the memo from her lawyer, Roni discovered in September that cafeteria workers were stamping the hands of children in the lunch line who didn't have money in their accounts to pay for a school lunch. She asked the food services manager to stop the practice, but the stamping continued.

Roni then met with the food services manager and school leadership, including Reeser, who agreed that the hand stamping should stop, according to the memo. The food services manager immediately resigned.

Three weeks later, a grandparent came to Roni upset that her grandchildren, who qualified for free lunches, were getting their hands stamped and were too embarrassed to go through the lunch line. A staff member also brought up a similar situation with a kindergarten student.

'She will stand by the kids'

The grandmother, Evelyn Bernstein, told the Camera on Sunday that she has two grandchildren at the school, a girl in high school and a boy in elementary school.

She said the boy told her that he tried to get pizza from the school lunch line, only to be given a cheese sandwich and have his hand stamped because there was no money in his account — though he qualifies for free lunches and didn't need actually need money.

He was embarrassed and didn't want to get hot lunch again, Bernstein said

When she contacted the cafeteria staff, Bernstein said, she was told that the school had purchased a new system that couldn't identify the students who qualified for lunch assistance and that her grandson should “just ignore it” if his hand was stamped.

Her granddaughter also had issues with what food she could pick in the hot lunch line, which were resolved, Bernstein said.

She added that, as far as she knows, the hand stamping has stopped and that she was glad Roni stepped in.

“At all odds, she will stand by the kids,” Bernstein said.

On Sept. 19, according to the memo, Reeser “demanded” that Roni take responsibility for the food services manager quitting and, when she refused, placed a disciplinary letter in her file citing her handling of the situation as an example of “unprofessional conduct,” according to the memo.

“Reeser used this incident and my stance against it as an example of my being unprofessional and insubordinate, which eventually led to me being terminated,” Roni said Sunday. “You put kids first. That's more important than whether I'm going to get along with my co-worker.”

'They shouldn't be hungry'

While charter schools set their own policies, the Boulder Valley School District policy for non-charter schools is to notify the parents or guardians when there's a negative balance on a lunch account rather than stamp the students' hands. Children also are given a full meal, regardless of the balance.

Ann Cooper, Boulder Valley's food services director, said the district used to stamp hands and serve only toasted cheese sandwiches to children who didn't have money in their accounts before she was hired five years ago. Many other school districts still follow a similar practice, she said, making Boulder Valley something of an anomaly.

“It's really important that we feed kids,” Cooper said Sunday. “They shouldn't be hungry because of a parent issue.”

Lightning has 5A state title aspirations once againIt was the only home plate the Legacy varsity softball field had ever known, and there it was last Saturday, in its tattered state, dug out of the playing surface and relegated to a lonely, unused existence. Full Story

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story